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life is a process in which bodies that the analytical 
philosopher is unable to change or to form, are con- 
stantly composed and decomposed. These opinions 
have not been advanced merely as hypotheses ; 
attempts have been made to support them by ex- 
periments. M. Schrader and Mr. Braconnot, from 
a series of distinct investigations, have arrived at 
the same conclusions. They state that different 
seeds sown in fine sand, sulphur, and metallic ox- 
ides, and supplied only with atmospherical air and 
water, produced healthy plants, which by analysis 
yielded various earthy and saline matters, which 
either were not contained in the seeds, or the ma- 
terial in which they grew $ or which were contained 
only in much smaller quantities in the seeds : and 
hence they conclude that they must have been 
formed from air or water, in consequence of the 
agencies of the living organs of the plant. 
The researches of these two gentlemen were 
conducted with much ingenuity and address ; but 
there were circumstances which interfered with 
their results, which they could not have known, as 
at the time their labours were published they had 
not been investigated. 
I have found that common distilled water is far 
from being free from saline impregnations. In 
analysing it by Voltaic electricity, I procured from 
it alkalies and earths ; and many of the combinations 
of metals with chlorine are extremely volatile sub- 
stances. When distilled water is supplied in an 
unlimited manner to plants, it may furnish to them 
a number of different substances, which, though in 
quantities scarcely perceptible in the water, may 
